The idea was that people would come to D&D from outside games, but, there's little or no evidence that that was ever true. People went from D&D to other d20 games, or went straight to other d20 games. How many people started playing d20 variants and then moved into buying D&D?
I don't know; how many did?
I've never heard that theory before - that wasn't the idea at all. The idea was never that people would start with other games and then move to D&D. The idea was that D&D was well-supported by third-party publishers via use of the OGL and - crucially- the d20 STL, and thus an attractive prospect from the outset - which it was. And that the d20 logo would create a large player network of people who knew the core rules to the game - which it did.
How many 3.5 PHB's does Pathfinder sell? How many 3.5 Monster Manuals does Pathfinder sell?
Well, none. The game isn't in print. But that minor witticism (yeah, I know, I won't give up my day job) aside, see my answer below.
After all, Pathfinder is using the license that is supposed to directly benefit WOTC.
Pathfinder's an outlier, though. And Pathfinder isn't great because of the OGL; it's great because it's produced by an excellent company made of people who know what they're doing.
Don't get me wrong. I understand your line of reasoning, and I don't fully disagree. Pathfinder is based on the OGL; Pathfinder has the largest market share right now; therefore the OGL is bad for WotC. I get it; I'm sure that plenty of folks at WotC see it exactly that way, too. I've made that same argument in one of the millions of copies of this conversation that have taken place on these boards.
IMO the difference is that Dancey etc. assumed that users of the OGL would need the d20 STL (the logo license) to make an impact - and at first that was true. The d20 STL prevented creation of a complete game; no character generation meant that the 3.5 core rulebooks were required by every single third-party product. But the d20 STL was withdrawn (and the logo had lost its luster by then, anyway, and companies' own product lines names started to assert themselves as the dominant branding, making the logo less and less vital each year), so OGL-only products started to matter. And those could be complete games. Not many did what Pathfinder managed, though.
The existence of 4e and the GSL doesn't change that.
Sorry; I've gotten a bit lost along the way. What doesn't it change?
WotC's entire strategy during that time - not just 4E and the GSL - helped contribute to Paizo's decision to launch the Pathfinder RPG. Crucially, the cancellation of the DRAGON and DUNGEON licenses were a hammer blow which forced Paizo to completely change direction. While I can't speak for them, from what I've heard them say, that was the biggest factor. Lisa Stevens:
Our license for publishing Dragon and Dungeon was due to expire in March 2007, and this meeting would be the first step toward negotiating a renewal of that contract. It took a while to find a time that fit everyone's schedule, and we finally had to resort to meeting by phone rather than face-to-face. On May 30, 2006 at 2 pm, I had a conference call with Wizards, and it was during this call that they let me know that they had other plans for Dragon and Dungeon; they wouldn't be renewing the license for the magazines. I personally don't remember much of my reaction, but after the call, I brought Erik in to my office and told him the news, tears streaming down my face. (Read Erik's recollection of this major event below.)
We always knew that this might be a possibility. That was, after all, one of the main reasons we had been building the other parts of our business: so we wouldn't be caught unprepared if the unthinkable were to happen. But I don't think any of us ever really thought that this was much more than a remote possibility. Dragon and Dungeon were finally firing on all cylinders and were enjoying critical acclaim that hadn't been seen in years. So this news struck us to the core. In one meeting, the last large chunk of the company that we started not quite four years before was going away. We were numb. How the heck were we going to cope with this? Frankly, it seemed impossible at the time.
I have to give Wizards of the Coast a lot of praise for how they handled the end of the license. Contractually, they only needed to deliver notice of non-renewal by the end of December 2006; without the extra seven months' notice they chose to give us, I'm not sure that Paizo could have survived. Wizards also granted our request to extend the license through August 2007 so that we could finish up the Savage Tide adventure path. This gave us quite a bit of time to figure out how we were going to cope with the end of the magazines. It would have been very easy for WotC to have handled this in a way which would have effectively left Paizo for dead—all they would have had to do was follow the letter of the contract. Instead, they treated us like the valued partner we had been, giving us the ability to both plan and execute a strategy for survival. For that, I will always be thankful.
The news caused us to kick our plans for other product lines into a higher gear. In fact, before even two hours had elapsed, we'd already scheduled an offsite meeting at my house. We knew that the key to our survival beyond Dragon and Dungeon hinged upon our mastery of creating adventures, particularly Adventure Paths. So we started to plan for what would end up being one of the most shocking announcements in the history or RPG gaming... but that tale will have to wait until the 2007 blog!
